The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity. Data communication connections at link speeds of 1.544 Mbit/s (T1) or 2.048 Mbit/s (E1) are widely available from service providers today. As enterprise networks and their connection to the global Internet become more a business critical resource, the bandwidth requirements may grow beyond the capacity of a single T1 or E1 link. If a single connection at T1/E1 speed is not sufficient to satisfy the bandwidth requirements, ready solutions are not always available. Upgrading the link to higher speeds is often not possible as the next level in the digital transmission hierarchy is at 45 Mbps (T3) or 34 Mbps (E3) link speeds. In many cases, these lines are prohibitively expensive or may not even be available. Even if the lines are available, the required bandwidth may be far below T3/E3 speeds and the link would be underutilized. Unless the telecommunications carrier is offering specific leased line services at speeds between T1/E1 and T3/E3, which is rare, upgrading the link is often economically not feasible. Hence, multilink bundled services are offered which aggregate multiple slower rate links and provide a logical appearance as a single, faster rate service.